‘More Patriotic Than Scrupulous’

Today, many Civil War battlefields resemble sculpture gardens. Where soldiers once fought and died, monuments commemorate their battle-tested regiments. But what about those regiments that failed the test? No elaborate memorials celebrate the deeds of the 11th New York Heavy Artillery–and the reason is clear. In the summer and fall of 1863, the promising new unit fell apart, largely thanks to the ambitions of its officers.

The story of the 11th began in December 1862 when Capt. William B. Barnes received orders to return to his hometown of Rochester and recruit new soldiers. He seemed an ideal choice for the job. The 23-year-old Barnes, a merchant by trade, was locally popular and widely considered one of the best recruiters in the state. Now he decided to outdo himself: he secured permission to raise his own regiment of heavy artillery, a force of 1,800 troops. In January 1863 the newly promoted Colonel Barnes began recruiting for the 11th New York Heavy Artillery.

Much had changed in Rochester, and across the North, since the war’s early days. Initially, the Union Army’s ranks were filled by volunteers alone. But by early 1863 enthusiasm had waned and conscription loomed as a possibility. State and local governments set aside huge sums for recruiting bounties to meet local quotas with volunteers and avoid a hated draft.

Events in Rochester dealt another blow to idealism. Colonel Barnes informed his officers that he had scored a valuable coup in Albany: apparently, the state adjutant general had told him that his regiment “would not go out of the state, but as soon as organized would be sent to the Forts in New York Harbor for the defense of that place,” thus avoiding combat service.

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Col. William B. BarnesCredit Library of Congress

Whether Barnes actually received such a promise is unknown; even if he did, it carried no official weight. His written orders did not mention special state duty, and a captain who later investigated the matter observed that “it must have been known to an officer who had seen service that no such arrangement could properly be made.” Three decades later, a fellow veteran paid Barnes a backhanded compliment by calling him “a man of culture and not evilly disposed toward any one; but, like many another enrolling officer of that period, he was doubtless more patriotic than scrupulous. He claimed to have authority for his plan.”

Barnes was a canny recruiter. After two years of slaughter, few potential volunteers wanted to risk their lives. This was why the colonel played up the heavy artillery. In contrast to the rigors and danger of infantry service, heavy artillerymen performed guard duty and manned the big guns in fortifications, where they never saw the enemy — or so Barnes and his officers claimed.

Across the state, recruiters advertised the merits of the 11th. In Rochester, Lt. James B. Root promoted his “crack company” with the gamut of promises:

His experience fits him for the position; and those wishing to enter a branch of service where picket duty and carrying a heavy knapsack is unknown, had better call upon him. He affords all the bounties or emoluments to be found in any other service; while the regiment is not to go outside of the State. Avoid the draft and enrol [sic] your name with Lieut. Root.

If a recruit actually did crave a little excitement, he could join Capt. William F. Goodwin’s battery of light artillery, which was attached to Barnes’s regiment. Goodwin equipped his unit with breech-loading cannons of his own design that had “the widest range of any in the world,” a newspaper reported. “They have projected a ball the enormous distance of six miles and can be fired at the rate of fifteen times a minute.” Money, safety, impressive weaponry — the 11th New York Heavy Artillery seemed to offer something for everyone.

Barnes had tapped a rich vein. By mid-June, recruits were pouring into his camp on the outskirts of Rochester at the rate of 20 a day. Civilian visitors complimented the colonel and his officers for keeping their men well-fed and clothed. Local and national events, however, were combining to destroy Barnes and his carefully built unit.

Col. Elisha G. Marshall had recently assumed duty as the army’s mustering officer in Rochester. The battle-scarred professional inspected Barnes’s recruits and was angered by what he saw. Pvt. David Ford, for instance, had deserted from another unit. More alarming still, Ford was missing “all the toes of both feet — also having had one of his legs broken & still extensively ulcerated.” Marshall found that the regimental surgeon was passing as fit for service men with various disabilities, along with underage boys. Many of them had also enlisted on the false understanding that they would not have to serve outside the state. In a letter to the War Department, Marshall cast all of the blame on Barnes. “I fear fraud with everything connected with his regiment,” he wrote.

That was merely the beginning of the 11th’s troubles. Hundreds of miles to the south, Confederate general Robert E. Lee marched into Pennsylvania with his army, prompting Northern officials to frantically appeal for troops to counter the invasion. On the night of June 15, the state adjutant general sent the 11th a startling telegram: “Colonel Barnes will have his regiment mustered in at once; will proceed immediately to Harrisburg, Pa., and await orders.” Dreams of soft duty evaporated as the soldiers realized they were bound for the front lines instead of New York.

Marshall returned to camp on June 17 to muster the 11th into federal service. The colonel swept the line of recruits with his fierce glare and rejected hundreds he considered too young, too old or physically unfit. Barnes saw his force suddenly shrink from a regiment of 1,100 men to a battalion half that size.

Marshall refused to give the rejected recruits, some of whom hailed from as far away as New York City, money for transportation home. The men he had accepted had their own problems, for they still awaited the pay and enlistment bounties owed them. Militiamen surrounded the camp to prevent disorder among the troops and the erstwhile volunteers wandering about. The situation exploded on June 22 when a guard fatally shot a 17-year-old private named James Stevens. Members of the 11th rioted in response, setting fire to their barracks and battling the militia. Barnes and most of his officers were absent in Rochester, and order prevailed only after the militia were reinforced with cavalry and artillery. “I have never mustered any troops with so little discipline,” Marshall declared.

Tempers cooled by the time Barnes and 560 members of the 11th boarded a train for Harrisburg on June 24. For several days, the artillerymen built entrenchments and performed picket duty outside the state capital. The Confederates drew closer, and on July 1 Gen. Darius N. Couch ordered the 11th to march to nearby Carlisle and help defend it from attack.

Barnes formed his battalion in line and announced that the authorities “requested” they go to Carlisle to serve temporarily as infantry. For the second time in 10 days, the troops dissolved into a mob, shouting their refusal to fight. “We had on our hand bills while we were recruiting in large letters, No long marches no heavy knapsack to carry and no unpleasant … field duty to perform,” Capt. Seward F. Gould explained. “Since we have been here we have done nothing else.” The 11th stayed put. That night, the inhabitants of Harrisburg saw reflections of light and heard the booming of guns as the enemy bombarded Carlisle. Less than 40 miles away, the rival armies clashed at Gettysburg.

Reports of the mutiny, along with the actions of some men who robbed and mistreated local civilians, made the 11th Artillery infamous. “The same lack of discipline which was noticed while the command was in camp here has characterized the conduct of the men since,” a Rochester newspaper charged. General Couch was furious. “The commanding general desires no such troops in his department,” he declared, “and will not for a moment receive a dictation of service from any officers or men in his command.” Eager to be rid of the troublesome battalion, Couch ordered it transferred to the defenses of New York City. The mutiny had gained the heavy artillerymen the station they had expected and hoped for all along.

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The 11th arrived in New York on July 10. Life in the city defenses was mostly uneventful, but even here the battalion seemed dogged by misfortune. As Captain Goodwin prepared one of his boasted breech-loading cannons for exhibition, a premature explosion blew off one of the inventor’s hands and blinded him. Nor was that all: Barnes was stripped of his command, a victim of his own and a rival officer’s ambitions.

Back in Rochester, Marshall had been very active after the 11th departed. In letters to Washington he condemned Barnes and his officers. “This Regiment has been Recruiting in this State for months, costing Government an immense sum of money,” he pointed out. “If you will examine the Muster-Out Rolls, you will see that Boys of 15 years old, men of 60 years and Ruptured men &c — have been passed by their Surgeon and Recruiting Officers.” This was in addition to the false recruiting promises. Marshall urged that the offenders be promptly punished.

Barnes felt the government’s wrath on Sept. 30. The adjutant general ordered the 11th’s commander “dishonorably mustered out of service, with loss of all pay and allowances, for fraudulent conduct in connection with the recruitment of the force.” The once-popular officer returned to Rochester in disgrace. Marshall, a career soldier who wanted a command of his own, even at Barnes’s expense, clearly had benefitted from his army contacts, but not everything went his way. The 11th stayed out of his command and most of the other officers escaped dismissal, although they referred to Marshall as an “evil genius” for long afterward.

Barnes’s spirit stayed with the 11th well after he was gone. In October 1863 the battalion was transferred to a regiment stationed in Washington; when they boarded transport ships in New York Harbor for the journey south, some of the men were so drunk they had to be carried to the docks in wheelbarrows.

The combat duty the men had long tried to avoid became inescapable in the spring of 1864. The men of the 11th joined the Army of the Potomac as infantrymen, and many of them were killed, wounded or died as prisoners in the final year of the war.

“Who has not heard of the 11th New York Heavy Artillery,” a member had asked in July 1863. “Their notoriety [is] undeniable — that point is clear.” But the notoriety did not last, and few today have heard of what was surely one of the most troubled units in American military history.

The story of the 11th is significant for several reasons. The federal government’s recruitment policies — which placed the burden of raising troops on local citizens and officers — virtually guaranteed fraud and conflict between recruiters and probably prolonged the war. The odyssey of the 11th New York Heavy Artillery also illustrated an age-old problem: the clash of soldiers’ expectations with the unforgiving realities of war.

Sources: “Annual Report of the Adjutant General of the State of New York,” 1864; Augustus C. Brown, “The Diary of a Line Officer”; “Case of W. B. Barnes, Late Colonel of the Eleventh New York Heavy Artillery,” in “Reports of Committees of the Senate of the United States for the First Session of the Fifty-Second Congress”; Collection 13775, Civil War Muster Roll Abstracts of New York State Volunteers, United States Sharpshooters, and United States Colored Troops, 1861-1865, New York State Archives; 11th Regiment Artillery (Heavy), New York Volunteers Civil War Newspaper Clippings, New York State Military Museum; Harrisburg Evening Telegraph, 1863; Entry no. 2067, Letters Sent by the U. S. Mustering and Disbursing Officer at Rochester, N.Y.; Record Group 110, National Archives and Records Administration; Donald M. Fisher, “The Civil War Draft in Rochester, Part One,” Rochester History, vol. 53, no. 1 (1991); James W. Geary, “We Need Men: The Union Draft in the Civil War;” Seward Forbes Gould Letters and Reminiscences, in Gould Family Papers, Department of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation, Rush Rhees Library, University of Rochester; James Horrocks, “My Dear Parents,” ed. A. S. Lewis; Hyland C. Kirk, “Heavy Guns and Light”; Robert Marcotte, “Where They Fell: Stories of Rochester Area Soldiers in the Civil War”; Ruth Marsh, “A History of Rochester’s Part in the Civil War,” in “Rochester Historical Society Publications,” vol. 22, ed. Blake McKelvey; William H. Martin Letters, Ontario County Historical Society Museum and Research Center, Canandaigua, N.Y.; Blake McKelvey, “Rochester: The Flower City, 1855-1890”; The New York Times, 1863; Frederick Phisterer, “New York in the War of the Rebellion,” 3rd ed.; “Regimental Letter Book, 13th New York Heavy Artillery,” and “Regimental Letter and Order Book, 4th New York Heavy Artillery,” Record Group 94, National Archives and Records Administration; Rochester Daily Democrat and American, 1863; Rochester Daily Union and Advertiser, 1863-64; Rochester Evening Express, 1863; The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, ser. 1, vol. 27, pt. III, and ser. 3, vol. 5.

Will Hickox is a graduate student in American history at the University of Kansas.

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